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This week, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiators have been meeting in Salt Lake City to hash out the final details of the TPP before the end of the year. They have been ‘welcomed’ with daily creative protests. We understand that the protests are giving negotiators from other countries the courage to stand up to the US.

However, word leaked out yesterday that the US negotiators are using outrageous bullying tactics to force other countries to accept exorbitant patent protections that will keep the cost of healthcare and medical treatments high and out of our reach. This hurts everyone!

The bullying is being led by Stan McCoy of the Office of the US Trade Representative. As a former employee of Covington and Burling, the world’s largest defender of Pharma’s profits, McCoy is accustomed to doing whatever it takes to protect his clients profits, even at the expense of human suffering and lives.

The US has 20 staffers at the negotiations while other countries have one or a few. “The US has adopted a strategy of exhaustion in its bullying of negotiators on the crucial intellectual property chapter to force countries to trade away health,” according to Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who is monitoring the negotiations. ”The US has stepped up its aggression….”

“This is a loaded game,” Professor Kelsey said. “McCoy sets the agenda and timetable. Negotiators are working from morning until late at night and preparing to work all night, if necessary.” Kelsey says that McCoy ignores proposals from other countries and has extended the talks so that negotiators from some poorer countries cannot be present.

This is wrong! Tell Stan that we need a new plan – one that puts people before profits!

Sign and share the petition above. If you prefer, you can email Stan McCoy here:[email protected] and include the USTR office at [email protected] or you can call McCoy here: 202-395-4510.

It only takes a few minutes and thousands of petition signatures, emails and calls will make a difference. Please contact Stan McCoy and urge your friends to do the same.

WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING ON DECEMBER 3?

We will deliver the petition to the Office of the USTR in Washington, DC at noon. Join us in support if you are able. Communities across the world are planning for an international day of action against neoliberal trade and the new wave of toxic agreements — including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Called for by the Indonesian People’s Movement Against Neocolonialism-Imperialism, theday of resistancewill coincide with the WTO’s Dec. 3-6th meeting in Bali, Indonesia and precede the TPP’s round of negotiations from Dec. 7-9th in Singapore. With 2013 coming to a close — and support for the TPP diminishing — it’s a powerful opportunity to demonstrate the global commitment to trade that puts people and the planet over profit.

Add your community to the international movement today!

A local action can be anything from a rally for fair wages to a letter-writing session for Members of Congress, and as Dec. 3rd approaches, we’ll be making a map of all the local resistance set to happen across the U.S.